Clickety Do Daw

One of the troubles with inward sins is that they are inward. (The other trouble is that they are sins.) With inward sins, those we cannot measure objectively, it is all too easy to claim we have them whipped. When I covet my neighbor’s car, no alarm goes off. When you hate your brother without just cause, no one calls 911. That’s why it’s so easy to pretend we’ve mastered what has actually mastered us.

We not only pat ourselves on the back for having won these invisible battles, but we all get together and mock those losers that we assume are failing. Everyone knows that social media gives us the opportunity to present ourselves in our best light. Everyone knows that people tout their victories rather than their defeats. Everyone assumes that this is everyone else, when it’s really everyone. As one wise comic put it, “You’re not stuck in traffic. You are traffic.”

“Man pleasing” is another of those internal sins that are invisible, unless they reach the most obnoxious extreme. One need not be an obsequious lickspittle to like it when people think your vocabulary level proves your high intelligence level. All one has to do, like me, is look for the clicks, the likes, and the shares. All one has to do is keep an ear out for notifications, harbingers of tiny little dopamine releases.

I may belong to the most ironic and pathetic class of man pleasers. Some of us wouldn’t think of softening a position to maintain respectability. Some of us would never seek out gentle words to communicate hard truths. No, we’re the ones who proudly earn the reputation of being prophetic, bold, uncompromising. We hunger for the most precious of accolades, entrance into the Untouched by the Approval of Men Hall of Fame. We want people, lots of people, to think we don’t care what people think.

The problem isn’t the hunger, but its object. That is, we only begin to win this battle when we seek satisfaction in the love of our heavenly Father. Strangers on the internet cannot fill that yawning belly, no matter what our analytics report. We will never be truly alive until we are dead to ourselves. The trouble with our solution, as with so many solutions, is getting there is so much easier said than done.

It is a good thing to want to do great things for the kingdom. It is a bad thing to want to be great in the kingdom. It is a difficult thing to tell these two apart. We get there, I suspect, when our Father does a good thing in us. We need His grace to put to death in us our hunger for the approval of men. We need to implore our Father to bless us in this way, knowing that He is our good Father who loves us, who gives us good gifts. He has shown His love for us, not by growing our reach, or building our brand but by hiding us under the shadow of the cross.

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This Week’s Romans Study- Ch. 13, God & Government

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Special Guest Doreen Virtue; The Simple Gospel & More

This week’s Jesus Changes Everything Podcast

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Fear God and Obey

Ecclesiastes is one of the most difficult books in all the Bible. One key reason is that it is inverted. Much of it is an extended ad hominem argument. By ad hominem I don’t mean that Solomon is insulting his intellectual opponents. Rather he is embracing, hypothetically, an errant worldview, and then showing forth the necessary implications of that worldview. When Solomon says “Vanity of vanity, all is vanity” he is not saying that all is vanity. Rather he is saying that if there is nothing beyond the sun, if this world that we perceive with our senses is all that there is, then all would be vanity.

The bulk of the book is taken up with various explorations of attempts to find meaning under the sun. He looks at earthly wisdom, at pleasure, at work, at success. And each one dies a swift and brutal death when confronted with… death. If there is nothing beyond the here and now, there is no meaning in the here and now. Solomon looks unflinchingly into the empty chasm of meaninglessness and returns to tell us the horror of what he saw.

He does not, however, leave us there. Having left the world of matter and energy in a heap of dust he turns to remind his reader that there is meaning, and that there is direction. He finally tells us, truthfully, the sum of the matter- “Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God and keep His commandments, for this is man’s all” (Ecclesiastes 12:13). After all the complications, after the hard work of tearing down our idols, Solomon brings us right back to the most simple of truths, to the direct, plain, eminently understandable calling of God on our lives- we are to fear Him and obey all that He commands.

It would be easy to find this conclusion anti-climactic. Of course we are to fear God and obey all that He commands. Every child knows that. There’s no disputing it. But what about… We may be willing to confess that this is our default position. The trouble is we think there’s a switch, and that sometimes circumstances cause us to flip it. Yes, fear God. Obey God. But if they threaten your livelihood, if they see you as a second-class citizen, if hardship comes, if this or if that, then it gets complicated. Then we have to figure out how to get what we want. God understands. He wouldn’t want us to be miserable and overrun.

Reformation happens not when we embrace a complicated, man-made strategy, but when we do the simple and obvious, when we fear God and obey Him. Consider the Great Reformer. When Martin Luther spent the night in his cell praying over his second appearance at the Diet of Worms his prayer was as simple as it was powerful. He did not ask for God to show him a way out. He asked God to recognize that the battle was His. Luther reminded himself that the end was in God’s hand, that all he had to do was fear God and obey. It is still true for all of us. It is the sum of the matter.

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Romans Study Tonight- Chapter 13

Tonight we continue our look at the monumental, towering book of Romans. All are welcome to our home at 7 est, or you may join us for dinner at 6:15. We will also stream the study at Facebook, RC-Lisa Sproul. We hope you’ll join us.

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What is Sonship theology?

Sonship theology is a set of biblical notions originally propagated by Jack Miller, a former missionary and pastor in the Presbyterian Church in America (former because Jack has gone on to his reward.) The ideas were first spread through a Bible study, then through a Presbyterian missions agency. The central theme, as evidenced in the title, is that we must come to understand that we are not only justified, but that we are adopted.

It begins with an assumption that while our lips may affirm we are justified by faith alone, our Pelagian hearts are given to thinking that God is happy with us when we do well in our walk, unhappy with us when we do not do as well. It encourages us to enter fully into our union with Christ. Among the common slogans birthed in this movement are these- “Relax! You’re much worse than you think.” And “Preach the gospel to yourself every day.”

So far there is nothing here that I could imagine objecting to. Indeed these themes are near and dear to my heart, central to my thinking, my teaching, my writing. I agree with Jack Miller not only that we need to understand these truths, but agree that getting our hearts around the glorious truth is a potent means to a more sanctified heart, a more God-honoring family, and a more grace infused church.

But there have been complaints. Some have accused Sonship theology of being implicitly antinomian. That is, some suggest that the notion that God is already as pleased with us as He is with His Son will remove the motive for better behavior. I find this accusation profoundly telling. I am unable to see how this accusation can stick on Sonship, but not stick on the gospel. That is, this accusation is a precise echo of what Rome said about the Reformers and the gospel they (and we) preached and defended. Though it may be apocryphal, it is said that Luther once quipped about preaching the gospel “If you are not accused of being antinomian, you are doing it wrong.”

Others have suggested that Sonship is too introspective. As you are encouraged to look for the idols of your heart, so that they might be torn down, it seems you could spend your time gazing at your navel. But do you notice how this complaint works against the former complaint? That is, how can one movement take you off the moral hook, and then also be too accusatory? And how can it be a bad thing to mortify your sins?

Finally, some accuse the movement of being a Reformed version of “higher life.” That is, like the holiness movement, Christians always face the temptation to create a two-tiered Christianity. There are those Christians over there, who haven’t had our experience, and us over here that have. We’re willing to see them in heaven, but if they want to join the elite, they need to have our experience. That higher life perspective is deadly, Gnostic and foolish. But surely that can’t mean that we can’t grow in grace and wisdom. Surely it can’t mean that we can’t encourage others to grow in grace and wisdom. Surely believing the gospel more fully, more faithfully, more biblically is a good thing. Indeed, surely believing this more fully will make us more humble, not less so.

My only complaint with the movement, as with most movements, is that it is a movement. That is, it can become THE KEY in the minds of some. It can be divisive in the minds of others. It can become a focus ironically, away from the work of Christ. These failures, however, are our failures, not a failure in the glorious gospel truth that in Christ we are made the sons of God. These failures are our failures, not a failure in the glorious gospel truth that we are forever sons, and not only can nothing tear us from our Father, but that nothing from this day forward can diminish His infinite love for us. We don’t need a movement. We do need to believe the gospel.

P.S. The very best treatment on our adoption, and the best book I’ve read in the last 20 years is Children of the Living God by the amazing Sinclair Ferguson. It can change your life.

Posted in Ask RC, assurance, Biblical Doctrines, Books, grace, justification, RC Sproul JR, Reformation, theology, wonder | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

The Bible Story

A friend of mine has been known to encourage me to produce my own study Bible. Happily, his vision for my study Bible isn’t quite the mammoth undertaking that putting together a real study Bible is. He suggests that my Bible just have a few notes, repeated over and over again. Things like, “See this promise? Believe it.” Or, “This sinner in this story—he’s just like you. Learn to see yourself in the Bible’s great sinners.” These two themes—that we need to learn to believe more fully, down to our toes, the promises of God, and that we need to come to a more potent, existential awareness of our sins and our weaknesses—are a big deal to me. The themes find their way regularly into my writing and into my teaching.

That, in itself, is not a bad thing. Wisdom calls us to recognize, as much as we are able, our own peculiar callings. If God gives you a cannon, He expects you to fire it. There is, however, also a danger. Just as it has been said that to the man with a hammer everything can look like a nail, so when we come to the Bible with our pet passions we will find ourselves tempted to see things in the text that aren’t there, and to miss things in the text that are there. We will show ourselves workmen who need to be ashamed for mishandling the Word of God.

There are, of course, metanarratives to go along with biblical narratives. A narrative, simply put, is a story. A meta-narrative is a story that transcends stories. It is the overarching story. The Boston Tea Party is a narrative. America as a fearless bastion of freedom— that’s a meta-narrative. The two, of course intersect, just as they do in the Bible. Abraham and Isaac on Mount Moriah is a story that illumines the meta-narrative of substitutionary atonement and of fathers sacrificing sons (see also John 3:16). Nathan’s confrontation of David is a story that illumines the meta-narrative of blindness to sin.

Because there are meta-narratives, we are wise to see them in the narratives we read. But because there are many, we need to be careful not to put square narratives into round meta-narratives. Trouble is, because there is more than one meta-narrative, we face the temptation to seek out the meta-meta-narrative, the story that transcends the stories that transcend.

Consider covenant theology and dispensational theology. These big-picture interpretative grids are so broad, so all-encompassing that each side often finds itself struggling to correct the other. Our differences are so foundational, touching on how we understand all of God’s Word that we seemingly have nothing to do but talk past each other. We can’t walk inside each other’s shoes because we’re walking in opposite directions. I have my own convictions on the issue, strong ones. But I’m not afraid to confess that I am virtually uncorrectable from my friends on the other side, simply because this is such a foundational issue.

Which makes me long for an unimpeachable answer, a meta-meta-meta-narrative that comes from the lips of Jesus Himself. Is it just possible that all the Bible’s stories about substitution, about covering, about creation, fall, redemption, about covenant are subsumed under one grand story? Perhaps so. What if, in the end, it were all about the kingdom? What if that is why Jesus said, “Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness”? What if He was clueing us in on the big picture? What if the dominion mandate, the Great Commission, the promise that all things are being brought into submission to the reign of Christ— what if these were all the one great story?

This doesn’t, of course, undo the other stories in the Bible. It’s still true that the Bible is the story of Jesus’ rescuing not the beautiful princess, but the ugly hag. But in doing so, He secures a queen for His kingdom. It doesn’t undo His death and resurrection for us. But in doing so, He wins citizens for His kingdom. It doesn’t undo creation–fall–re-creation. But it affirms that God created a kingdom, Adam failed to rule it, and Jesus now succeeds where the first Adam failed.

When Jesus calls us to seek first His kingdom, He isn’t turning sanctification, evangelism, sound doctrine, atonement, and meeting the needs of widows and orphans into secondary matters. Rather, He is telling us why we pursue these things, the end for which they exist. It is affirming the forest that helps us understand the trees.

There is, however, one more step. The Bible is only penultimately the story of the kingdom. For the glorious truth is that the kingdom exists for the sake of the King. The Bible is Jesus’ story from beginning to end. He is the Alpha and Omega of the Bible, even as He is the Alpha and Omega of history. We understand history, we understand the Bible, therefore, only insofar as we understand Jesus. That is what each is for: to show us the glory of the Only Begotten, to the everlasting praise of the Father. May we never, in all our study, lose sight of Him.

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Draft Days

My father and I, as far back as I can remember, loved to talk sports, especially the Pittsburgh Steelers. It is true enough that we had plenty of valuable and enjoyable conversations on knotty theological issues and subtle biblical texts. It is even more true that we almost always agreed. I remember telling him, though I’m not sure he was persuaded, that even where we disagreed it was because I was seeking to take a position we shared to its necessary logical conclusion. Downstream disagreements flowed out of shared upstream sources.

When I was in elementary school I admired my dad, and wanted to be like him, in the realm of sports. He had earned a football/baseball scholarship to college. When I entered into high school I continued to admire my dad, and wanted to be like him, in the realm of theology, philosophy and apologetics. While there were times when I behaved badly, I was never in open rebellion against my father, always hungering for his approval. That has never changed.

What has changed is that I no longer hear from him. He went on to His reward more than six years ago. Were he still with us, however, I wouldn’t be having those heavy conversations with him right about now. Instead we’d be talking about the NFL draft. He’d start out by asking me what positions I’d pick for the Steelers in the first three rounds. Then he’d wait patiently to break down his first three choices. Then we’d go back and forth awhile until the conversation would veer into epistemology, how we know things.

That is, I’d say, “I can’t for the life of me figure out how come no one seems to know who will do well and who won’t. When two of the best players of the last twenty years were both 6th round draft picks, when the majority of first round quarterbacks either ride the bench or don’t even play five years in, it sure seems like a crapshoot. I’d argue that we won’t really know until the end of the following season, and we’d measure by wins, losses and play-off births.

I wasn’t, mind you, arguing that our conversation was fruitless. No, I loved the conversation, even though it never led to any definitive conclusions, for one simple reason- they were conversations with my father. I got to listen to his gravelly voice, to his infectious laugh. I got to watch his eyes light up. I got to see him relax. I got to be the skeptic and he the optimist, until the regular season began and we’d switch positions, he bemoaning that the Steelers were doomed, me believing magic would strike again.

For some people it is the holidays that bring to mind the blessings lost from loved ones who have passed on. For me it is NFL draft season. I doubt he’ll be watching, but if he is, it’s probably around a table with Chuck Noll and Myron Cope. I miss my dad, and love him. I miss in turn loving the Steelers with him.

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Grace; Groypers; More Grace and More

This week’s Jesus Changes Everything Podcast

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Antithesis

Of what? Antithesis, to the broader world, describes that idea which counters the thesis. The antithesis of “Social justice is a biblical concept” is “Social justice comes out of Marxist ideology.” To the Christian, however, it is more than this. “The antithesis” is a concept found in our Bibles that affirms the reality that there exists in this world two groups of people- the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent, and that these two groups are at war with one another. It is a way of looking at the world in light of this reality.

The church, too often, takes the eminently biblical notion that the weapons of our warfare are not carnal and turns it into the eminently carnal notion that there is no war going on. The world is, to those who don’t think in terms of the antithesis, a neutral place, Switzerland if you will. To be sure there are Nazis out there, enemies of the kingdom of God, but the great bulk of the world is made of non-combatants, well-meaning albeit ignorant civilians. Such a perspective is, well, the antithesis of what the Bible teaches.

We are engaged in a war. The war began in the garden. Satan’s first assault made of every mere human a soldier in his army. God’s promise, however, was that He would put enmity in our hearts against the serpent, that He would draft us into His army. There is, however, no way station. We are born at enmity with God, by nature His enemies. We stay that way, no matter how polite and well behaved we might be, no matter how conservative our politics might be, unless or until He gives us new life. The instant that happens we are at enmity with the Serpent, soldiers in the Lord’s army.

Antithesis then means tearing down strongholds, every high-minded thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God (II Corinthians 10: 4-5). The Apostle Paul, Jesus Himself, the whole of the Bible reminds us of the reality of the war. Because one of the enemy’s most potent weapons is simply getting us to forget. In our day, as the broader culture tosses overboard every vestige of its biblical heritage, the antithesis is more easy to see. Watching Republicans embrace a 15 week murder window, watching leftists demanding the destruction of Israel doesn’t look “neutral” to the most oblivious Christian.

The danger faced by those who are aware of the antithesis, however, is found here- knowing who and what our enemies are. There is great overlap between the culture wars and the war between the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent. But they are not the same thing. The enemy of our enemy may be someone we can fight beside. But we must remain on our guard. We must not confuse our common cause with a common faith.

We must, in fact, be eager to fight the enemy within, our own sins and lofty thoughts. We have been drafted into the Lord’s army, but the old man always tries to drag us to the other side. The weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty. And they begin here- with repenting and believing the gospel.

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